Swearing! It’s forbidden! But why? Why should it be? After reading an article about swearing that Scary Mommy had published titled Pardon My F*cking Language, But I’m Sweary AF And That Ain’t Gonna Change– it got me thinking. What is the fucking deal about swearing? Why must it be so dirty?
Let’s pick this apart before we go into anything further. Profanity is a fancier term for swearing. I realize Wikipedia is not the most reliable source but it’s reliable enough to find out the origins of profanity. According to Wikipedia, the term profanity itself comes from the Latin profanus which translates to outside of the temple. Therefore profanity was thought to be “desecrating the holy”, as early as the 1450 CE.
However, in English, swear words and curse words tend to have Germanic instead of Latin. For instance, shit has a Germanic root as well as fuck. But if you want to get technical, the early roots are Latin in origin, such as defecate for shit, and “fornicate” for fuck.
So in other words, the main reason profanity is such a no-no is because swear words are considered to be blasphemous by nature. Well, firstly, I find that hilarious considering I have heard many religious people of any religion swear like sailors. But really? Most of us couldn’t care less about the roots of profanity.
Personally, I don’t see a problem with swearing because there is a calming effect after you scream the words fuck, or shit! If you for instance stub your toe, your the first thing you want to do is scream out profanity after injuring your toe. There is something healing in swearing! You may still be in pain after you scream fuck. However, the edge is somehow taken off.
As far as kids and swearing. Well I swear at home. I always did. Even around my autistic son. I don’t care. Surprisingly he never repeated it but if he did, I would have told his therapists the truth if they asked. My daughter however was always able to understand that “grown up words” were to not be used at school or in public. I didn’t care either because one day she would be exposed to profanity all of the time outside of home. Here she is at 15, in high school around other kids who swear all of the time. If she is going to hear profanity, she may as well start to hear it from home instead of elsewhere.
Think about what would happen if we never swore. She would be laughed at if she heard some other student say “fuck this”, and asked him or her what that meant. That would be mortifying!
However, let’s face it. Being a mother is stressful. When you are parenting a child with special needs, the stress is piled upon even more. If I am stressed and depressed, I will swear! And it fucking helps! I know of other moms who feel the exact same way! Let us find peace by using profanity because, fuck, it is needed!
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